Infestation

by Heidi Lang

Caden spun.

  Aiden stood framed in the doorway, blocking him in.

  “What are you—” Caden began, just as Aiden flung his hands up.

  A wave of darkness slammed into Caden, and he fell backward, pinned beneath it. Just as consciousness slipped away, Caden heard the sound of a phone ringing. Huh, he thought. A working phone in the Watchful Woods. Despite everything, it seemed the most surprising development of the day. Aiden’s voice said, “Everything is in place,” as the darkness seeped behind Caden’s eyes and soaked into his mind, turning it the peaceful black of an ocean at night.

  35. RAE

  Rae wanted to ask Vivienne about Patrick’s cure, and her blood drinking, and if they were related. But she was afraid she’d then have to tell Vivienne about her dad. She’d gotten so used to keeping that a secret that it was hard to picture sharing it now.

  She’d told Caden, though. And he’d believed her.

  Rae glanced sidelong at Vivienne, who was flipping through pages in the bug book, trying to come up with a battle plan. What they were about to do was very dangerous. Maybe it was time to take all their secrets out of their hiding places and put them in the open. “Vivi—”

  “Your phone is ringing,” Vivienne said.

  “What?” Rae listened, and heard the faint vibration now too. She dug it out of her backpack and flipped it open. “Hello?”

  “Do you ever pick up your phone?” Nate sounded halfway to panic mode, so Rae resisted any sarcasm. “You and Vivienne need to get here fast.”

  “I thought he quit,” Vivienne said.

  “I didn’t quit, I just… protested.”

  “I think he can hear you,” Rae said in a stage whisper.

  “Of course I can hear her. It’s not like Vivienne talks quietly.”

  “Ouch!” Vivienne said. “You wound me, Mr. I-quit-but-don’t-want-to-admit-it.”

  “Tell Vivienne that that name is ridiculous!”

  “Nate says that name is ridiculous,” Rae said.

  “Yeah. I heard. He’s loud too.” Vivienne smirked. “Tell him I said so.”

  “Vivienne says you’re—”

  “Stop,” Nate said. “Just stop.”

  Rae was pretty sure she could hear him grinding his teeth, and grinned. It felt good after all the stress of the day to annoy Nate. “So what do you want?” she asked.

  “Is Caden with you?”

  Rae’s grin slipped away. “No.” She’d tried calling him the moment she got out of school, but it went straight to voicemail, and the windows of his house were all shuttered and dark. “It’s just me and Vivi.”

  “I always suspected that Caden was smarter than he let on.” Nate took a deep, noisy breath. “You know how I live near the Town Square?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Well, Blake is my neighbor. Technically not my actual neighbor; he’s a few streets down. But close.”

  “Okay…” Rae felt like Nate was stalling. It made her nervous.

  “I thought I’d check on him when I got home. You know, because it’s a code yellow, and last time he vanished he ended up living in a yurt in the woods with his curmudgeonly uncle. I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone.”

  “Get to the point, Nate.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Gone?” Rae said. “Like… missing?”

  “Well… not exactly, no. Because I think I know where he is.”

  Rae was afraid she might know where Blake was too. She swallowed. “So, you’ve figured out where the nest is?”

  Nate was silent for a long moment. Then, “Yeah,” he whispered. “I think so. Meet me over here?”

  “We’ll be right there.” Rae hung up. “We need to get to the townhomes by the mall.”

  “Will your sister take us again?”

  Rae frowned. “You know, it’s weird she hasn’t gotten home yet. She doesn’t usually stay late at school. But she wouldn’t have the car anyhow. My mom took it to work.”

  “Bike?”

  “I think that’s our best option. I’m sure Ava won’t mind if you borrow hers. I’ll just leave her a note.” Rae thought of her sister and how mad she’d be if she knew they were chasing after another alien bug. “You know, maybe I won’t,” Rae decided. She didn’t want her sister to worry. “Let me grab a few things, and let’s go.”

  * * *

  They biked fast and hard, Rae following Vivienne down side roads and over hills. By the time they approached the Town Square, Rae was hot and sweaty. They slowed down, circling around to the nearby townhouses. Nate was already waiting for them at the bottom of one of the driveways.

  “Finally!” he exploded.

  “Easy there, Nate.” Vivienne hopped off her bike and stood next to it, casual and not at all tired. Rae got off her own bike more slowly. “We’re here now.”

  “Yeah, but I wanted you here thirty-five minutes ago.”

  Rae glanced at her phone. “You only called me twenty minutes ago.”

  “Actually it was twenty-eight.”

  Vivienne rolled her eyes. “The point still stands. How could we have been here thirty-five minutes ago, if you only called us in the last half hour?”

  Nate adjusted his glasses. “Twenty-eight minutes. And I said I wanted you here, not that I expected you here.”

  Vivienne sighed deeply. “Are you sure you don’t want to quit again?”

  “I told you, I was just protesting. This, what they have us doing, is not normal. You do see that, right? They want us to go into a tunnel and fight a giant alien bug. And we’re twelve.”

  “I’m thirteen,” Vivienne said.

  “Oh, well, I guess it’s okay then,” Nate muttered.

  “What did you want to show us?” Rae asked. She knew Nate was right. There was something about this town that almost made her forget what normal really was, but regardless, she had accepted this mission. Not just so Patrick would tell her where to find her dad, but also because, if there was a chance that she could help Blake, she had to take it. She’d been too late to save her neighbor or Jeremy Bentley from the Unseeing, but she had to believe that this time she’d succeed.

  “Follow me.” Nate led them past all the blue-gray townhouses, their pointed roofs and fake-shutter windows all alike, until they reached a small cul-de-sac lined with a final row of townhouses. Beyond them stood a copse of trees.

  “The Town Square is through those.” Nate pointed at the trees.

  “So that’s where the ground caved in?” Rae asked.

  “Yes,” Nate said.

  Rae was beginning to get a terrible feeling about all this.

  “Did you call Patrick?” Vivienne asked.

  “I texted Doctor Nguyen,” Nate said.

  Vivienne nodded. “Almost as good.”

  Rae thought Doctor Nguyen might actually be a lot better. She seemed like she wanted to protect her young interns, while Patrick was content to use them like playing pieces on some warped game of life.

  “Blake lives in this one.” Nate pointed to the townhouse that stood closest to those trees. He led them up its paved driveway and then around the side to a small fenced-in yard. Just past the little fence, inside the yard, there was a mound of loose dirt. “I spoke with his parents when I got here. That”—he pointed at the dirt—“is where they buried Waffles.”

  Rae stared at him. “Okay, I know this town has some weird customs, but I’m really not following how that’s relevant.”

  Nate sighed. “Not the food. Waffles the goat. A few days ago, a ‘wild animal’ attacked him. Or at least, that’s what they thought.” He gave her a pointed look.

  She got it. “Because the goat’s stomach was ripped open.”

  “Exactly.”

  Rae felt sick as she imagined the scene. The bugs bursting forth, hiding nearby, coming back for Blake. If they were taking kids now, then all of Whispering Pines was in trouble.

  “Alyssa told us that Blake was looking for his uncle, who went missing,” Vivienne said.

 
“That’s what his parents said too. He went out last evening and then never came back.” Nate turned his back on the house. “There’s something else you need to see.” He led them across the grass and into the trees, stopping a few feet in and pointing at the largest bug skin Rae had ever seen. It had to be six feet long. And it was different from the others. Where the little ones had been a milky yellow-white, and the larger males had been a night-washed green, this one was almost the same color as the grass and dirt around it. Like it was camouflaged. “I think that might be from our queen.”

  Rae pictured something that size scuttling through the darkened tunnels beneath their feet. “So she does come above ground,” she whispered.

  “Probably has to, when it’s time to molt.”

  Rae tried to remember what she had read about bugs and molting. Something about how they couldn’t breathe while shedding their skin, and how that was a moment of weakness. Seemed like they’d missed an opportunity there. She ran a hand over her face, thinking hard. “If the queen came up above ground to molt, then her nest must be near here. Right?”

  “That is the conclusion I reached,” Nate said.

  Rae had the sudden urge to climb a tree and never come down. Nate shuffled, looking like he had the same idea.

  “And… if she’s molting, does that mean she’s getting ready to swarm?” Vivienne asked.

  “Also probably accurate. Although technically I believe she would remain here, as the older queen, and the new one would swarm.”

  “No, actually, it’s the old one that swarms, if they behave like bees,” Rae said. “The younger one remains with the original nest.”

  Nate and Vivienne stared at her.

  “You just out-Nated Nate,” Vivienne said, holding her hand up for a high-five.

  Rae gave it to her, grinning. But her grin fell away quickly as she gazed across the trees. She could just make out the spot where the ground was broken, the tunnel partially collapsed. Someone had cordoned off the area with orange cones and a bit of rope. Otherwise, it stood open and unguarded. “What did Doctor Nguyen say when you texted her?”

  “She said Patrick was on his way.” Nate sighed. “We’re going to go in there, aren’t we?”

  Rae knew that if a second queen was born, and she started a new colony somewhere else, this infestation would double, and then quadruple, and pretty soon it would be unstoppable.

  And then not just Blake but all of Whispering Pines would be in trouble. Maybe even the country. Maybe even the world.

  “I think we have to,” she said.

  36. CADEN

  Caden woke slowly, his head throbbing. For one confused moment he thought he was home. But the light was wrong; he never slept by candlelight. It was too unreliable. And he wasn’t in his bed, either. Instead, there was a cold hard surface beneath him. And someone was chanting.

  Caden sat bolt upright, those last few moments before he fell unconscious catching up to him in a rush: the note, the eyeless horrors, Aiden, the crushing dark.

  “So glad you’ve returned to the land of the living, little brother,” Aiden said.

  Caden blinked, warily taking in his surroundings. Aiden had drawn a pentagram—a five-pointed star—in the middle of a circle using some of their mom’s thick chalk. The design created eleven spaces, all of them outlined in rows of small tea-light candles. Caden was in the uppermost point of the star, while Aiden sat in the space between its two bottom legs. In every other space sat one of the Unseeing victims, silent and motionless as dolls, their legs crossed, hands in their laps, reflected candlelight flickering in their gaping eye sockets. And in the center, the spot reserved for the spell’s focus—

  Ava Carter, bound and gagged, her eyes wide with terror.

  For half a second Caden could only stare at her. He’d thought it was Rae in danger. He’d never even considered…

  Ava whimpered around her gag, and Caden burst to his feet, reaching for her.

  A wall of fire erupted between them, the flames licking hungrily toward his skin. Ava cried out on the other side of it, and he stepped back, dropping his hands. The flames immediately ebbed.

  “Uh-uh, Caden. If you want to rescue her, you’ll have to do better than that,” Aiden said.

  Caden’s fear uncurled like candle smoke. He looked past Ava at his brother, who sat calmly, cross-legged and relaxed. “What do you want?”

  Aiden tilted his head, the light filling in the hollows of his cheeks, glinting in the dark of his eyes. “Why, I just want to live. Isn’t that what anyone wants?”

  “Then what’s stopping you? Why do all this?” Caden indicated the pentagram, the eyeless ones, Ava.

  “You asked me before how I survived.” Aiden twirled that strange ring on his thumb. “Nine long months, trapped in a world filled with monsters that fed on my blood, that knew how to find me whenever they wanted. There was no escape. I would run until I couldn’t anymore, and they would wait, and then they would find me, and they would feast. I couldn’t die. They wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t live, because there is no life in that place. Not really. I could only… exist.” His mouth twisted into a bitter curl. “I thought I was strong. But that place broke me.”

  Caden felt the tiniest surge of pity. But then he let his gaze shift from Aiden to Ava, and the pity was gone. “So how did you survive, then?” he asked coldly.

  “I struck a deal.”

  Caden remembered the conversation he’d had with his mother, just before Aiden reappeared. When she’d explained the Other Place was meant to be a prison for something evil and indestructible. And Caden knew exactly who his brother had struck a deal with.

  “And now…” Aiden slid their mother’s knife out from behind him, its long slender blade catching the light. Their mom used it for her most dangerous and important rituals, so she kept it clean and very, very sharp. “It’s time for me to fulfill my end.”

  “Why Ava?” Caden asked desperately. “What do you need her for?”

  “She’s here to ensure your good behavior, brother dear. You see, I realized that my own safety might not be enough to inspire you to act. Then I thought, maybe even our parents’ safety wouldn’t be enough. But a hostage? Right here in front of you? With your tender heart, that would do the trick.” Aiden smiled and reached into Ava’s space, stroking her cheek.

  She flinched back, her eyes narrowing, and growled at him through her gag.

  Aiden laughed. He hefted his knife, turning it so the candlelight gleamed along the edge of the metal. It looked like he was holding a blade of fire.

  Ava made a small noise. She was bound so securely all she could do was twitch in place.

  “If I cooperate with you, you’ll let Ava go?” Caden asked.

  “I will.”

  “Where are our parents?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never lied to you.”

  “You said you didn’t have your powers anymore.”

  “That wasn’t a lie. This power here isn’t mine. It’s borrowed. Otherwise I would open the rift myself. Now. You know what I need you to do.”

  Caden’s dream hadn’t really been a message, but a trap. And he’d stumbled right into it. He thought of some way to stall, to save Ava, to escape. But he recognized the sealing spell his brother had done and knew there would be no way out until Aiden released him.

  “Open the rift, little brother.”

  “And then what? Will this evil escape?” He made himself look at Ava. At her eyes, so similar to Rae’s. At her trembling lips. He had his own shields up tight, but even so, he could feel her terror battering against them.

  Rae had lost her father. If she lost her sister, it would destroy her. But… if saving her meant unleashing a terrible evil on the world, an evil that his family was bound to keep imprisoned, could he really live with himself? What if it murdered everyone he loved?

  “I see your resolve is shaking,” Aiden said. �
��Maybe I’d better inspire you.” He lunged forward, grabbing Ava by the throat and dragging her closer, his knife point digging into the skin under her left eye.

  “Don’t!” Caden yelped. “I’ll do it!”

  It was the wrong choice. He was certain of it. But Aiden knew him well. He was too tenderhearted.

  Aiden’s grin was as sharp and wicked as the blade in his hand. “Excellent, little brother. Begin, if you would.”

  Caden let out a breath, ignoring Ava thrashing next to him, ignoring the screaming of his own consciousness, the feeling of strangeness in the air, the smell of smoke and incense and blood. He pushed it all from his mind. And let himself sink into the spell.

  37. RAE

  Rae turned on her newly acquired headlamp, and its beam sliced through the darkness of the tunnel in front of her like a laser. “Whoa.”

  “Pretty cool, right?” Patrick said from above. She turned, and he immediately put a hand in front of his eyes. “Watch it!”

  “Oh, sorry.” Rae turned her headlamp off again. “It’s a surprisingly hard habit to break.”

  “I’ll just wait to turn mine on, then,” Vivienne said. She stood next to Rae, all suited up and obviously eager to get to work.

  Rae wished she had even half of Vivienne’s confidence and enthusiasm. Rae’s own stomach had gone right past knots and straight into the world’s largest tangle, and she hoped she didn’t throw up all over her fancy Green On! suit. It was a modified version of the hazmat suit Patrick had issued to them on their first day. Sleek and new, it hugged her body like some sort of futuristic wet suit and had apparently been equipped with technology that would allow Patrick to monitor her location in the caves and keep track of her heart rate and breathing.

  Patrick had also included a more mundane survival kit in the front zippered pocket of each suit: bandages, gauze, a lighter, iodine pills for water treatment, a small emergency blanket, and a very loud whistle, like the kind lifeboats carried on the ocean. “Just in case” was all he had said about those items. Rae had stuffed her inhaler into the pocket with them and tried not to imagine being trapped down here in the dark, huddled under a foil blanket and attempting to purify cave water.